Legislature makes final push on bills

Jim Vertunoand Paul J. Weber, The Associated Press

Published
1:27 pm CDT, Sunday, May 26, 2013

AUSTIN — The Texas Legislature churned through its final day of passing bills Sunday, with expected votes on a budget that uses a surging state economy to restore large portions of historic spending cuts of two years ago, and a major overhaul of public education testing and curriculum.

The session officially adjourns Monday, but the final day is typically reserved for making minor corrections to bills and the pomp of send-off ceremonies. That left lawmakers scrambling to put most of the finishing touches on their work over the previous 139 days.

And they did it with an eye on staying at the Capitol well into the summer. Many lawmakers expect Gov. Rick Perry to call them back into a 30-day special session to tackle issues left unaddressed.

Agenda items for the special session are expected to include settling voting maps that have been disputed in federal courts since and strengthening the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association, the insurer of last resort for coastal area property owners.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and some Republicans in both chambers want Perry to revive failed conservative efforts such as tighter abortion restrictions, looser gun laws and a harder cap on state spending.

But while those partisan fights may yet come, the budget compromise affirmed a surprising atmosphere of bipartisan harmony over the past five months.

Barring an unlikely derailment late Sunday in the House or a Perry veto, the state is poised to run on a roughly $100 billion spending plan in 2014-15. It’s a budget that restores $4 billion slashed from public schools in 2011 and gives state employees a 3 percent raise.

Nearly $300 million additional taxpayer dollars are going to mental health. Few states spend less on mental health than Texas, but like other GOP-controlled statehouses, leaders in the Capitol threw more money at the issue instead of tightening gun laws following the December elementary school massacre in Newtown, Conn.

A historic drought and booming population also prodded lawmakers to develop a new $2 billion state water plan that emerged as a bipartisan priority from Perry on down. Even environmental groups — typically no friends of Texas lawmaking — hailed the push as one of the most ambitious water plans brainstormed in a U.S. statehouse this year.

Price was rarely an issue. A new oil boom and roaring Texas economy handed lawmakers a historic pot of revenue to spend in January. Five months later, fiscal hawks and conservative pundits now blast this Legislature as reckless big spenders.

Republican budget-writers would hear none of it. Republican state Sen. Tommy Williams, the Senate budget chief, even slammed unnamed critics this weekend, saying they should go back to school and be taught “how to count.”

Education had been one of the dominant themes of the session, but with court challenges to the school finance system still pending, lawmakers kept their focus on what happens in the classroom.

The House and Senate were scheduled to vote Sunday on a bill to cut the number of standardized test for high school students to graduate from 15 to five, leaving only exams in algebra, biology and English. Students, parents and administrators have complained of over-testing, but business groups worry that cutting back will leave Texas students unprepared for the workforce.

The bill also promotes flexibility in academic standards to give students more time for vocational training for technical jobs that pay well but may not require going to college. The bill also allows more charter schools.

But the final education bill did not include “school choice” scholarships to help students move from public to private schools, one of the most controversial education issues debated over the previous five months.

Other bills passed Sunday included a study of the Travis County district attorney’s public integrity unit, which has handled prominent criminal cases against state officials including former U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Republicans have long complained that Democratic district attorneys in Austin have been selective in prosecuting Republican office holders.

All bills passed, including the budget, are sent to Perry to veto or be signed into law. Perry also has line-item veto power over the budget and he has been used that authority over his five previous regular sessions to slash billions in spending. Perry will have until June 16 to veto a bill before it automatically becomes law with or without his signature.